Nitrous Oxide
by SabreDae
Summary: For the following prompt on the castlefanficprompts Tumblr: Kate has a bad toothache, but doesn't want to go to the dentist. Castle has to practically force her. "Honestly, you're worse than Alexis," he muttered after forcing her down into a chair in the waiting area.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Alex over at castlefanficprompts on tumblr was just too funny with her tags for this prompt. I literally couldn't resist. I'm setting it early season 3 before Josh appears in case that's not overly obvious from the storyline. **

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><p>Castle strolled into the precinct to see Esposito and Ryan both standing at Beckett's desk looking oddly menacing with their arms folded across their chests and Espo's muscles bulging under his tight tee. He couldn't even see Beckett behind their towering figures.<p>

What was more unusual perhaps was that not one of the three of them was speaking. Instead it seemed they were holding some kind of weird three-way staring contest…

Maybe he never would understand the inner workings of a cop's mind.

"What's going on, 'Sito?" he asked as he approached and stopped beside the detective.

"Beckett's refusing to go to the dentist," Esposito growled, glaring even more at his seated partner.

"You've still got that toothache?!" Castle exclaimed, turning to Beckett in shock. He'd been absent from the precinct for two days, supervising Meredith while she was in town just in case she decided to whisk Alexis away to the Bahamas for a spa treatment, but he'd assumed the growing pain Beckett had been feeling in one of the molars in the top of her mouth would have either disappeared or been treated by a dentist.

"M fgn," Beckett claimed, earning confused looks from the three men before it twigged that she'd been trying to say she was fine.

"You're clearly not fine."

"Can you even pronounce 'I's?" Ryan asked.

"How about 'o' and 'u'?" Rick joked, receiving a glare from all three of the cops. "Not up for humour today? Okay," he muttered to himself.

"Just go to the dentist, Beckett," Ryan requested, trying to make it sound like more of an order only to have her roll her eyes at him.

Unless Captain Montgomery stepped out of his office and had officers physically remove her from the building and drag her into a dental surgery, she wouldn't be seeing a specialist for her stupid toothache. And the boys knew that.

Shaking their heads, Ryan and Esposito glared at her for a moment later before giving up and walking back to their own desks before Montgomery could appear and reprimand them for not doing any work. That didn't mean Castle couldn't continue their efforts to persuade Beckett to seek medical help, however.

He removed his coat and made himself comfortable facing her before asking, "So how long have you had this now?"

Beckett shot him a scowl, a look that he returned with equal fervour until she groaned and held up six fingers.

"Six days?! What is wrong with you, Beckett? Why won't you just go see a dentist and get it sorted?" he questioned, raising his voice in a mixture of exasperation and disbelief. Only Beckett would be so foolhardy. He watched her open her mouth to reply, saw the minute wince at the movement and interrupted before she got another unintelligible sound out. "And don't you dare say you're fine. Come on, I'm taking you to see someone."

Again Beckett opened her mouth to protest but Castle got there first.

"I'm not taking no for an answer," he warned, grabbing her coat from the back of her chair and holding it out expectantly for her.

Growling in the back of her throat, Beckett pushed her chair back and grimaced at him once more, though she allowed him to help her into her coat and steer her from the precinct with hands on her shoulders, keeping her one step in front of him so she can't turn back.

Out on the street, he hailed a cab and opened the door, waiting for Beckett to slide in for a full minute before the cabbie shouted something about being on the clock and would they get a move on, and he realised she wasn't going to be getting in the car under her own steam. Stifling a sigh, he pushed on her back to get her moving, having to put a hand on her head to get her to duck much like she normally would when taking a charged suspect to the precinct.

Her knee jittered the entire journey drawing his attention.

"You're not…scared of going to the dentist, are you?" he asked.

Beckett's head twisted so fast he heard it click from the other side of the car. Her fierce glower soon corrected that idea.

"I get it," he said, holding his hands up. "You're not scared of anything." It came out kind of sarcastically but he wasn't entirely convinced she wasn't anxious about dental treatment. Why else would she refuse to have her tooth looked at?

He'd given the driver the address when she wasn't paying any attention so she had no idea which dentist's office they were going to until the cab stopped and she stepped out onto the street in front of a building and saw the cartoony logo and sign for _Tooth Works_.

"A pegract entst?" she exclaimed, whirling around to him and stubbornly folding her arms. "No, Ceshl. No!"

"Come on, Kate. These guys are great. They even give you a lollypop at the end of your appointment," he replied, dragging her towards the paediatric dentist office by a grip around her arm. Still, she struggled though. "Honestly, you're worse than Alexis," he muttered after forcing her down into a chair in the waiting area. Even if his daughter hadn't been keen on a strange man putting his gloved fingers in her mouth, she'd never fought as much as Kate had. "You're not gonna run away if I go and get paperwork for you to fill out, are you?"

Beckett met his eyes with a flat stare that left him unsure either way, but he crossed the short distance to the reception desk anyway and asked for the relevant forms and a pen. She was still there when he turned back, so he simply handed her the forms and sat back down beside her, turning his gaze to the plasma screen tv on the wall instead of the personal details she was filling out.

Once she was done, he took them back to the receptionist and then waited with her until one of the nurses emerged and called out her name, expecting to stay in the waiting room and amuse himself with either a magazine, the tv or some of the awesome toys they left out for the kids.

When she stood though, Beckett's fingers were twisted tight in his jacket and her gaze seemed to reluctantly plead with him, so he removed her fingers and instead linked them with his own, following her to her treatment room.

"Miss Beckett," the dentist greeted. "Come on in and take a seat on the chair." He indicated the reclining dental chair and turned back to surveying Beckett's notes while she got settled. "So you've got some toothache?"

Beckett nodded stiffly.

"Okay, I'm just gonna recline the chair and then I'll take a look and see if we can work out what's causing this."

The electrical whir filled the room as the chair sank backwards until Kate was almost horizontal.

"Okay, open wide," Dr Jackson requested.

Beckett's mouth stayed clamped shut despite the amount of pain that was probably causing her.

"I think she's got a bit of anxiety," Castle said quietly before miming a zipping of his lips when Beckett's head shot up and gave him a murderous look.

Nodding the dentist replied, "Okay, that's not a problem." Rolling his chair back, Dr Jackson opened one of the draws under his desk and signalled to his nurse to help him get the canister of nitrous oxide attached to the tubing and inhaler, ready for Beckett.

Soon enough Beckett relaxed her grip on the armrests and allowed the dentist to gently open her mouth and start taking a look inside.

Castle snorted when a high-pitched tinkling laugh came from the chair and Beckett slurred, "Tickles." He didn't think Beckett was capable of giggling, but laughing gas did funny things to people.

"Castle?"

"Hmm?" he asked, wondering what she wanted and why the dentist wasn't growing annoyed with her talking interrupting his investigation of her sore tooth.

"Don't leave," she mumbled.

"I'm not leaving," he replied, shifting his chair in the corner of the room until he was within her view again. He could have sworn he heard her sigh but her tone was almost accusatory when she responded slowly.

"You left before."

He frowned. He left before? When?

"You left and I was going to go with you but you left."

As he translated her garbled sentence, he thought there should have probably have been at least one comma in there somewhere before it hit him that she had to be talking about the Hamptons and he stopped worrying about her grammar.

"You were going to come to the Hamptons?"

"Yeah," she said, giggling again.

He wanted to say something but the dentist turned to him and said, "She's got a small cavity – nothing too serious. I'm going to get rid of the decay with a drill and then put in a filling."

Castle nodded distractedly, wondering what could have given Beckett a cavity. He knew she kept a bag of gummy bears at her desk, but he didn't think he'd ever seen her eat them. The only things he'd ever seen her eat at all were the occasional pastry with her coffee and pizza or Chinese.

He spent the rest of the appointment in silence, listening to Kate's occasional mumbles and laughs and the dentist's notes to the nurse while pondering the meaning of Kate's admission. When they were done, he escorted her back out the reception to sort her insurance details, keeping an arm around her waist because she was more than a little loopy still.

"Okay, let's get you home," he muttered to himself as he stepped out through the glass door onto the street again. Against his side, Beckett laughed again, swaying slightly.

"Rick?"

Castle whirled around to see Gina stood on the sidewalk, staring at he and Beckett in shock. Oh great, he thought sarcastically, could this day get any more complicated?

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><p><strong>AN: Thanks for reading! I'm toying with the idea of doing a follow up chapter… let me know what you think of that idea! (Seriously, it will just be one extra chapter though!)**

**P.S. Anyone who's wondering, I will get back to my existing stories soon. I'm working on a short epilogue for If You See Kate and an additional chapter for Notches in the Bedpost, both of which should be done really soon and then I swear I'll get back to work on the chapters I have lined up for Red Shirt and The Bump in the Case. I've not forgotten about those stories, I've just been super busy recently. **


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: So, I, er…wasn't expecting that many of you to read, review and follow this story… Thank you!**

**To the original prompter of this, I'm so glad you liked the first chapter! I wish I could have replied to you personally. Do you have an account?**

**As is often the case with me, my plan for this story has changed. It's now going to have 4 or 5 short chapters overall, which I'm sure will please a lot of you. I felt like there was more to tell and explore so, yep, despite telling myself I'd only do two chapters because I'm so busy with university work and other fictions, I decided I should do this justice and make it long enough to round everything off more nicely. I'm spending every day reading and note-taking for my dissertation research, so writing is more of a secondary concern at the moment, although I'll do my best to finish this soon.**

**Also, I'd like to quickly say I've never had laughing gas administered, or seen anyone who has, so this whole story could have been really incorrect in terms of what actually happens to you…**

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><p>"Well, Rick?" Gina asked, stepping forwards until she was right in front of him and the tapping of her foot was even more noticeable. "What's going on?"<p>

"I was just taking Beckett to the…"

He gestured behind him as he trailed off, but Gina continued doubtfully, "Children's dentist…"

What did she think? That he and Beckett had arranged to meet at _Tooth Works_ for some kind of sordid, steamy affair? Cause that was a romantic setting… Although, when he thought about it, the chair could be kinda fun…

Beckett chose that moment to flop around his body, hanging in front of him like a ragdoll with one arm loosely gripping his neck and a hand twisted into the waist of his jacket.

"Hey Gina, you two goin' somewhere?" she mumbled, awkwardly patting the side of Castle's face with that arm hanging around his neck by the elbow. Tightening his grip on her, Rick attempted to pull her back to a more upright position, but it was as if she had gone completely boneless, the heels of her boots not even touching the ground. "M gonna come this time."

Glancing from Beckett to him, Gina shot him a quizzical look.

"Laughing gas," was all Castle said in explanation, only earning another unusual look from his girlfriend.

He could tell by the look on her face that she was wondering why he had to accompany Beckett to a dental appointment, that she found it weird he would do such a thing and seem completely unfazed by it, as if it was an everyday occurrence. Which it wasn't. He and Beckett didn't seem to do anything anymore. They hadn't had a poker night in months, let alone grabbed takeaway together at the end of her shift.

"Yeah, I'ma come," Beckett repeated.

Oh, Hell. That second lot of gas the dentist administered while he was drilling through Kate's cavity had to have been a mistake. He'd have thought its effects ought to have worn off but, worryingly, there didn't seem to be a single sign of that happening any time soon.

Sighing, he threw an apologetic glance at his girlfriend and mimed calling her later, before escorting Kate to the edge of the sidewalk – with much difficulty – and sticking his hand out to flag a cab. Manhandling Beckett into the back of it was even worse than the first time, earning him a series of odd looks from both the driver and every single person that passed by on the street.

Finally he had her in the backseat, somewhat upright, and slid in beside her, shutting the door.

"Where to?"

"Uh," Castle said as Beckett's head came to rest on his shoulder, the shifting strands of hair on her scalp tickling his neck as she literally snuggled into him.

One of her hands snuck under the edge of his jacket, pushing it aside and a laugh bubbled out of her. He shot her a puzzled look that there was no way she could have seen, but she seemed to explain anyway.

"Stripes."

He glanced down, and yes, he _was _wearing a grey and white striped shirt, though he failed to see what could be even vaguely amusing about that. Beckett on drugs was even more mystifying than she usually was.

"Dude?" the cabbie asked, sounding frustrated as he twisted in his seat to glare at the pair of them. "Where to?"

"Oh, Varick and Franklin," Castle replied, grabbing hold of one of Kate's wandering hands.

Since pushing under his jacket, her right hand had been having fun sliding up and down the front of his shirt, fingers circling around buttons. It was a problem that continued the entirety of the thirty minute car journey, despite how many times he grabbed her by the wrist and deposited her adventurous and apparently uncontrollable limb back in her own lap. She was silent for the rest of the ride though, slumping further against him when the car braked sharply on her street.

If he thought getting her into the cab had been hard, it was another thing trying to drag her out by the arms after paying the fare. Inside, the cabbie tutted and sighed loudly, shooting him looks out the window every few seconds until he finally had her feet on the ground and tugged hard enough to get her body to follow them, knees crumpling so much that it was only his quick reflex to secure his arms around her middle that saved her from face-planting on the sidewalk.

"Whoa, the ground's moving." That earned another giggle, a sound that only grew louder when he hoisted her up again and practically carried her to her front door, nodding his head at one of the building's other occupants as he left and held the door open long enough for him to enter. Judging from the pitying look he got, it seemed Beckett was doing a perfect impersonation of a drunkard.

Castle took one look at the wide flight of stairs beside the metal doors of the building's elevator before thumbing the call button. Beckett was light, but there was no way he could get her up those stairs if she wasn't willing to help him at least a little by actually walking. Nope, elevator it was, even if he had to spend five minutes waiting for it to arrive at the ground floor and for the elderly lady inside to hobble out with her walking stick, looking at the both of them with clear disapproval, before he could drag Beckett in and press the button for her floor.

Outside her apartment, Castle paused. Where were Beckett's keys?

He made quick work of checking around the door for somewhere she could have hidden a spare – under the large ficus plant, and on top of the hallway light – but he came up empty, leaving him to resort to searching her pockets.

Going through her coat pockets was okay; it was having to stick his hands in her jeans that left him red faced and repeatedly telling himself to focus on finding her keys and not copping a feel of anything. While he dug around her front left pocket, Beckett twitched and twisted in his arms and for a moment he worried the effect of the laughing gas was finally wearing off and she was about to punch him hard enough to send him flying down the hallway. But then she laughed again, mumbling something about being ticklish and he breathed a sigh of relief, pulling the ring of keys from her jeans and inserting one into the lock, trying each of them until he was able to twist the mechanism and unlock the door.

"Come on," Castle muttered, pushing on Kate to get her to stumble in through the door. Somehow she made it to her couch and flopped over the back of it, landing on her back with her legs hanging off the cushions, kicking off her boots.

He surveyed her for a moment, lying slack and looking comfortable.

She was in her apartment and she would hopefully sleep off the rest of the laughing gas. She probably wouldn't appreciate waking up to find him still in her apartment watching over her. So, he grabbed the blanket from the back of the couch and flung it over her, quickly rounding the end of the furniture to pick up her legs and get them under the warmth of the cover, smiling to himself at her peaceful image as he crossed her apartment and left, shutting the front door behind him.

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><p><strong>AN: I hope you guys liked it. I'll try to get the third chapter up as soon as possible. Let me know what you thought (and I guess if there's anything you'd like to happen/what you think will happen - I'm interested in that too)!**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Thanks again to those of you adding this story to your alerts and favourites (the amount of people following this, considering it just three chapters at the moment, has kinda blown me out of the water), and extra special thanks to the people reviewing. I'm glad you guys are enjoying it!**

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><p>Castle felt weary as he stepped into the loft and shut the door, checking his Omega when he wondered why Alexis wasn't sat at the breakfast bar working on her homework before he remembered she was sleeping over at Paige's that night.<p>

Assuming he had the place to himself, he stopped in the kitchen only long enough to grab a bottle of chilled water from the fridge and abandon his jacket before he parked himself on his couch, picking up the remote to idly switch through TV channels. The trouble was that it was hard to focus on whichever episode of _Fringe _Fox was re-airing when all he could think about was the look on Beckett's face three months ago when Gina had shown up at the precinct.

He could see it as clearly as if she was right there, staring out at him from the TV with those disappointed, almost wounded, eyes. That was the look that had plagued him for the entirety of his summer in the Hamptons.

"Shouldn't you be writing?"

He jumped in surprise.

"Gina! What, er, what are you doing here?" he asked, attempting to sound confused rather than annoyed by her presence. He watched as she pushed back his chair and stood up, walking around the desk and out of his office.

"Do I need a reason to spend time with you, _Richard_?"

He swallowed and grinned, one of the ones that bordered on fake – the kind he usually reserved for interviews with obnoxious and nosy reporters. Luckily for him, his ex-wife never really had learnt the difference.

"Not at all," he replied after a moment, shifting on the couch so that his legs left room for her. "You wanna watch something with me?"

Gina smiled and folded herself onto the couch gracefully so that she was tucked up against him with her head and one hand both resting on his broad chest. He surrendered the remote control to her without a word, knowing she wouldn't willingly watch a sci-fi show. Unsurprisingly, she was quick to flick through to a channel showing a reality TV show about dating. Still, he could sit through it if he had to – it was easy enough to let his mind drift.

"You smell like her," Gina murmured after a few minutes of having her nose pressed against his neck. Judging from the way she wrinkled her nose and eased way from him slightly, she either didn't appreciate the smell (which was practically impossible – the woman smelt like cherries!) or didn't like the fact Beckett had been close enough to leave her scent on him. "Why did you have to take Detective Beckett to the dentist anyway? She's a grown woman, I'm sure she's capable of going alone."

"You'd think," he muttered, rolling his eyes as he remembered the persistence with which she'd fought him, Ryan and Espo too getting the brunt of her obstinacy. When Gina's elbow dug into his ribs, he realised however that he had yet to answer her question. He shrugged. "The guys thought she needed a chaperone to make sure she didn't take a lengthy detour." It was the best he could do without admitting he'd forced her into getting an appointment and revealing how anxious she'd been before getting her two doses of nitrous oxide.

"What was she babbling about anyway?"

"When?"

"Don't play dumb with me, Richard," Gina said, turning away from the plasma screen to meet his eyes with a challenging, all-seeing stare.

God, it felt like he was staring into the Eye of Sauron himself. Lying to Gina was always difficult, but it was damn near impossible when she was on the alert, facing him and ready to pick apart his stories until the truth was exposed.

"I don't know what she was talking about; she was high," Rick finally said, talking in half-truths that he half-heartedly hoped would be enough. Of course, he knew they weren't.

"Is that really it? Or is there something you're not telling me?" She raised an eyebrow so thin and perfect it looked like it had been drawn on at him. Swallowing, Rick tried to refrain from squirming under her scrutiny. "Why was she talking about coming with you this time? Coming where? When was last time?" The questions seemed never ending, each one making him feel increasingly uncomfortable.

He couldn't help it. He moved, shifting closer to the arm of the couch – incidentally further away from Gina.

"Well, Rick?"

"It's possible," he began after a moment, pausing between words to try and find the best phrasing, "that when I invited Beckett to spend the summer in the Hamptons with me and she said no, she changed her mind."

"What?" Gina's voice was sharp, her tone unforgiving. "You invited her to the Hamptons?" Gina shuffled back on the couch this time, staring at him with a mixture of hurt, disbelief and anger. "And what, when she said no, you settled for taking me? You didn't really want to get back together, did you? You just didn't want to be alone."

His silence confirmed her suspicions.

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><p>Kate stretched languorously, arms coming into contract with something much softer than the wall her bed rested up against. She opened her eyes, immediately recognising the décor and surroundings of her living room as she yawned, relishing the feeling of being well-rested for the first time in days. A beam lit her features as she realised that she couldn't feel any pain coming from her tooth – the very thing that had kept her from such sound sleep since Saturday. It confused her that she was on the couch with just the ratty tartan blanket for comfort, rather than in between the sheets of her bed, but it wouldn't be the first time she had stumbled in exhausted from work and crashed on the nearest soft surface.<p>

It was a bit concerning that she couldn't really remember coming home. How late had she stayed at the precinct? So long that she was half asleep returning to her apartment? She hoped she hadn't taken her Cruiser and had been sensible to just get a cab. Thinking hard, she could vaguely remember a cab ride with Castle – it must have dropped her at her apartment before taking him back to the Loft.

Perhaps sharing the fare with Castle was what had given her the weird dream she'd woken up remembering. Mostly it was gone now, but there had definitely been something about stripes… As she went about her routine, taking longer in the shower than usual, Beckett tried unsuccessfully to recall more but it seemed it was completely gone.

Seeing no sign of her dark blue squad car when she finally made it down to the street after dressing in a hurry, running late due to her distracted state in the shower, she shrugged and figured her initial assumptions about the previous evening had been correct. Rather than catch another cab, Kate walked to the nearest subway entrance and caught the next train that would get her within walking distance of the Twelfth.

"Beckett," the desk sergeant greeted as she passed and stepped into the waiting elevator, squeezing in with two Robbery detectives chatting about their latest case and a uniform escorting a lawyer to the second floor. It wasn't long before she was the last person in the lift, enjoying the momentary quiet before the doors slid open and revealed the usual ruckus of her bullpen.

Ryan and Esposito were already at their desks, sifting through yet more of the unsolved cases Captain Montgomery had ordered them to check out whenever they weren't working an open case. As the clack of her heels on the hardwood floors signalled her arrival, the pair of them looked up however and nodded at the box that had already been placed on her own desk.

The sight made her glum as she stopped beside her desk and realised it was a fresh box someone had dumped there - a whole week's worth of cold cases, most likely. "Morning," she muttered as she untied her coat and dumped it over the back of her chair.

"What d'ya know," Espo said, "Beckett can talk again."

Levelling a glare at the shorter of the two detectives, Kate didn't even look as she grabbed the nearest projectile from her desk – a blunt pencil – and launched it towards Javi's face.

"Sheesh," Ryan exclaimed amidst a laugh at his partner's expense. "I hope Castle brings coffee. Decaffeinated Beckett is as dangerous as Beckett suffering toothache."

"Yeah, shouldn't you be happier or something? Or at least glad you let Castle take you to get your tooth sorted?"

"Castle what?" she mumbled, frowning in confusion before- Kate dropped into her seat as it came flooding back – the boys ganging up on her and trying to convince her to go to the dentist, Castle joining in and eventually forcing her to go, the laughing gas… Oh God, _the laughing gas_!

Her face flamed behind her hands as she hung her head in horror.

"_Yeah, I'ma come."_

Her embarrassing words weren't even the worst of it. She could now distinctly remember her clingy behaviour, how easily she'd wrapped herself around Castle, appreciating his solid frame and masculine scent and humiliatingly, her pleas for him to not leave.

At that point she distantly heard the elevator doors slide open again and knew without checking for confirmation that it was right around the time Castle would usually stroll into the bullpen. Oh yeah, it was definitely him. She could even recognise the tempo of his steps after two years of working side by side.

Barely thinking, Beckett scrambled off her chair and looked around wildly for somewhere to escape before realising she had no time left to make it to the breakroom or the back staircase or anywhere really, and just dove under her desk.

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><p><strong>AN: I hope you guys are still entertained. Let me know what you think!**

**I haven't decided on whether there'll be a fifth chapter yet, but there will definitely be a fourth!**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: I really loved reading some of your responses to the last chapter. Keep 'em coming, guys!**

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><p>The desk? Seriously? What was she thinking? Kate shut her eyes and smothered a groan at her own stupidity as she heard Castle stop beside the piece of furniture, his shoes scuffing the wooden floor as he turned – probably in confusion – before asking Esposito and Ryan after her whereabouts.<p>

"_Please tell me they didn't see me_," she thought desperately as she attempted to peer past her chair at Ryan without making a noise. Her back protested, a twinge developing, at the awkward position she was stretching into. She winced, but otherwise kept her mouth shut. Whoever designed the desk had clearly not thought through how much space there was underneath it. Even after just a few moments, she felt squashed, her muscles complaining at the cramped area.

Her breath caught as she watched the Irish detective's eyes rove over her hiding place before he shrugged.

"Huh," he said, "she was just here. We were literally talking to her a minute ago."

He looked around again, pushing up on the arms of his chair to peer through the breakroom window as if she could somehow have apparated there. She was beginning to realise that the longer she hid under her desk, the harder it would be to explain. Even if one of them didn't discover her, she'd be waiting a long time until all three men disappeared for long enough to allow her to get out, and she had no excuse for her whereabouts if they came back.

"How was she at the dentist yesterday?" Esposito asked.

It was now or never.

Her hand sent the chair rolling into the front of Ryan's desk before she crawled out, using a grip on her desk to stand up.

"Beckett? What were you doing under your desk?" Castle asked, clearly already jumping to the conclusion that she'd been hiding from him. The smirk spreading across his face was a big enough clue.

"Dropped my pen," she replied, holding up the tool her hand had fallen upon when she stood up. "It rolled… under the desk."

"_Right, because that didn't sound like a lie_," she thought, criticising herself. She was meant to be a detective, surely she could bluff more convincingly that that.

He nodded slowly, his doubt obvious even if he didn't overtly dispute her story.

"So, how's the tooth?"

"Fine," she answered, keeping her tone light as she pulled her chair back into position and dropped into it while pulling out the first file from her box of cold cases. If she could appear busy then hopefully he would drop the whole thing.

"And how's your back?"

She froze for the smallest of moments.

"Your back? You fall over or something, Beckett?" Espo queried, looking at her with concern.

"No, I did not fall over and yes, my back is fine, thank you very much."

"Really? You take yourself to bed in the end?"

"Seriously," Espo demanded, "What is going on? You two been having a little something on the side?" Kate shot him a blatant glare, but Javi barely paused, just ploughed on, "Something you want to share?"

Ryan regarded her curiously, occasionally flicking a glance at Castle as if it wasn't already obvious that the two of them thought she and Castle had had a… sexual encounter. While that wasn't true, _something _had happened between them and she had a feeling that it – or rather, what she'd said – couldn't be ignored or reversed.

"Castle took me back home after my appointment and I fell asleep on the sofa. End of story," she told them, willing them all of them to just drop the subject.

"You haven't told them?" Castle asked, looking gleeful as soon as his shock wore off.

"There's nothing to tell," Kate told him through gritted teeth, shooting him a warning glance.

"Seems like there is," Ryan and Espo said at the same time, their united front frustrating her as it often did.

"Fine," Beckett exclaimed as she stood up. "Tell them if you really want to. I'm going for a coffee and when I get back, this conversation is over."

The three men watched her stride to the breakroom, the sharp rap of each of her steps clearly showing her irritation with them.

"Well?" Esposito asked as soon as she was sealed inside the room and they were safe from her wrath. Something was going on with Beckett, it was his brotherly duty to find out what it was. And if it happened to be some juicy precinct gossip, he and Ryan bother knew there was no-one better to ask than Castle. Somehow, despite only being at the Twelfth a few days a week, the guy always had the newest information.

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><p>The cupboard slammed shut as Kate placed her mug down on the worktop with too much force – probably enough that she was lucky to have not been confronted with flying fragments of the ceramic material.<p>

Sighing, she took a step away from the counter and the coffee machine before she really did break something, forcing herself to calm down. Would it really be the end of the world if the boys found out she had a little problem with dentists? Or that, try as she might, she was still hung up over the whole thing with Castle taking Gina to the Hamptons? They already kind of knew that anyway - they had seen her face as Castle walked out at beginning of the summer with one of his arms wrapped around his ex-wife in a way that could only be construed as romantic.

Breathing normally once again, she returned to her mug and picked it up, only for a large, warm palm to wrap around her wrist, staying her movement.

She knew it was Castle. Even without his masculine scent around her, or the barest hint of his presence at her back, she knew it was him.

"Allow me," he husked into her ear, making her realise just how close he was. The tiniest movement of surprise brought her tense shoulder blades into contact with his chest. But she released her grip on the NYPD mug anyway, allowed him to scoop it off the counter and begin the artful process of making her a vanilla latte.

"You're not telling them?"

It was something between a question and a statement, but he answered anyway.

"No, it's none of their business. Just like it's none of mine really."

She nodded, silently appreciating his respect for her privacy. Maybe he really had changed. It was pathetic, she knew; after all everyone had a fear or phobia of some kind. But she still couldn't quite quell her inner panic at the idea of the entire precinct finding out about hers. Being afraid of dentists was a child's phobia; not a grown woman's.

"About what you said though… about the Hamptons," he clarified, "Did you mean it?"

She paused, trying to figure out what to say, what he wanted her to say, and whether that was actually the same thing.

"Castle, I-"

"-Yes?"

God, he looked so hopeful.

"I-I broke up with Tom that day and I was going to tell you…" she whispered, vacillating for a moment between telling him the whole story and passing off a half truth about her breakup. "I was going to come with you, but then-"

"Gina turned up," he said, finishing for her.

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><p><strong>AN: Because I've loved writing this story so much I will do a fifth chapter. But it's probably gonna be shorter than this chapter… just to warn you. **


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: I couldn't focus on my dissertation reading today, so I wrote this chapter instead. I hope you guys like it, it's the last one. I really want to say a massive thank you to everyone who's been reading this. I didn't expect such a great response for a short story that I wrote in the spur of the moment. You've all made it so fun – seriously, this has been my best fanfiction experience to date. Also, of course, shout outs to the original prompter - Nadine - and Alex over at castlefanficprompts on Tumblr, without whom this would obviously not have been possible.**

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><p>He stared at her, feeling like something was crumpling inside of him. God, he was such an idiot. Why hadn't he just waited a couple more hours before asking Gina to accompany him to the Hamptons?<p>

"Beckett," he croaked, "I-"

Kate shook her head. "It's not your fault, Castle." Looking at the ceiling, she muttered, "I should have been honest with you, honest with _myself_, and said yes when you asked."

"If I'd just been patient," he argued earnestly, unable to keep his eyes from her despite the fact that she didn't seem able to look back at him. There was no way he could justify in his head letting Beckett shoulder all the blame for their missed opportunity. Sudden pain originating at his hand and wrist broke his gentle tone. "Shit!" He'd completely forgotten about the milk he had been steaming for Kate's latte, and some time during her confession he'd removed his hand from around the pitcher to prop himself against the counter. He hadn't felt the metal growing hot while he had the wand tip submerged; he hadn't heard the milk start to boil over until he could feel the liquid spilling over and scalding his skin.

"Shit, Castle, are you okay?"

Beckett was panicky as she reached past him for the machine's dial, spinning it quickly to cut the steam before taking the hot pitcher of milk from him with her sweater sleeves pulled down to protect her fingers and palms. As soon as it was on the surface top, she dragged him to the sink, thrusting his hand under cold water that got more frigid and soothing by the second.

"Are you okay?"

He peered at his hand, twisting it under the water flow to get a better look at his pink skin. As yet the burn hadn't blistered and although it stung, it didn't seem to be in need of medical treatment.

"Think so," he replied, though he kept his hand under the running tap anyway.

Scrubbing her hands down her face, Kate sighed and leaned away from him, standing in the corner and resting against the countertops. She needed the space even if she couldn't make herself move too far away when he was injured, minor as it was.

"What now then?"

He shrugged. There were so many ways to answer that question. He knew what he wanted but what about her? What did Beckett want? He hoped it was still him, but he couldn't help being afraid it wasn't.

Kate was an extraordinary woman. He found it hard to believe that there wouldn't have been at least one rebound guy in his absence after she broke things off with Demming. He knew how attractive she was – he'd been in her company long enough to notice how almost every man she walked past would often stop what they were doing to watch. She had to have had offers. And it wasn't like he was even free either. Even if he and Gina were apparently in the middle of an argument, he wouldn't feel comfortable starting something with Kate while he was still technically back together with his ex-wife. He'd experienced an affair before. It wasn't pretty; it was messy for everyone involved and, even if he knew in his heart that he still didn't really love Gina, he wouldn't put her through that.

"I can't just forget," he finally said, his tone cautionary. She just nodded as though that was the exact response she had expected.

She knew he meant he couldn't forget her admission, but for her it was different. She couldn't forget how it felt that day watching him walk away with his ex-wife. Despite months of trying, she still couldn't push away the hurt whenever she thought about him picking Gina over her. And she wasn't sure she was ready to open herself up to him again – it had been costly the last time.

"But I'm still…"

"Right, you're with Gina," Kate muttered.

He couldn't help adding, "Probably not for long," and earning himself an eyebrow raised questioningly. "I hadn't told her I invited you to spend the summer with me first," he explained, leaving only his tone to hint at how unhappy his girlfriend was with him. She opened her mouth to tell him that he was still with Gina, subtly telling him she wouldn't partake in an affair, but he cut her off with a simple, "I know. I just need some time."

She nodded. "I can do time." Time would be good, it would allow her to get over the pain of rejection, help her heal a bit more before she took down her wall again and tried being something serious with him.

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><p><strong>AN: So somehow this story went from light and funny, to kind of ridiculous, to a bit heavy… but I hope you've still enjoyed it! Any time you've got to spare and tell me what you think would be greatly appreciated. Thanks again for reading, you guys! **

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><p><strong>ALSO, 2 days! I hope everyone enjoys the end of the hiatus and the season premiere!<strong>


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